Abstract

In this paper, the author presents and compares the different Hungarian translations of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. The first, 1887 translation of the novel – a scandalously bad, abridged text, completely unworthy of Tolstoy, made on the basis of the German translation – rightly provoked rage among contemporary critics and readers. At the beginning of the 20th century, the translation of the novel was undertaken by Dezső Ambrozovics and then by a group of four translators, but the real breakthrough came with the 1951 translation by László Németh, which was a nice and accurate translation of Anna Karenina, and worthy of its author. In the course of time, several editions of the translation made by László Németh were published, yet the editors “provided some clarifications” throughout the text with the intention of correcting it. The author of the present paper also gives some examples of the misunderstandings and errors of translation which were produced in the text due to the lack of proper knowledge of Russian culture.